ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE FACTORYHIROSHI, ITSUMURA1 ; MASANORI, AKIYAMA1 and HIDEHIRO, GAMOH212Nagoya University Library Studies
Nagoya University LibraryFuro-cho, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
Email: hits@nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp
ABSTRACTThe increasing amount of scholarly information makes it hard for management of digital collections. In
Japan, The most important issue in the universities is its accountability of academic activities. Thisarticle provide an overview of Academic Knowledge Factory. AKF is the digital library which manages
the information resources. The main focus of the project has been developing a kind of institutional
repository to hold content ranging from peer-reviewed published papers to theses, course materials andarchives. Finally, we provide some programmatic direction for the institutional repository researchstreams.

INTRODUCTION
The environment of higher education institutions have changed rapidly. Information technology,
communication and the popularization of electronic journals have been made influence on what
information activities in many academic categories. The trend in international businesses has alsochanged, which is causing the oligopoly phenomenon in the academic publishing activities and therising prices. On the other hand, advancement in the technology of information searching by the end
user, the search engine like Google, the simple, fast and seamless way of information searching havegreatly made influence on the research and education activities. In Universities, it is necessary to use
information technology effectively and economically and develop it as the advanced higher education
institutions. Academic library is the organizations which offer human and physical information. For
example, Libraries collect materials and information resources, and systematize and preserve them.
Libraries also offer materials and resources and the places to study and research to the users and do
reference and information services when they need. The purpose of academic libraries is the support forthe member of universities using various materials.

DIGITAL LIBRARIES IN JAPANIn Japan, Academic libraries are divided into three by the establishment body; national, public andprivate. They are influenced by the body of each university. Recent increase of scholarly informationand the change of scholarly society, the progress of the information technology and communication, theproblems of economy, the change of student character and internationalization also make great influenceon academic libraries.
The introduction of computers to academic libraries work started in 1960s. In 1968 it was discussed by
the Project team of Mechanization of National University Libraries, then mechanization of academic
library work started in Osaka University and Gunma University. In private universities, library systemstarted in Kyoto Sangyo University in 1968 and Keio University and Nanzan University started tomechanize the housekeeping. This introduction seems to have been done individually.
In 1986,

NACSIS: National Center for Science Information System was founded. NACSIS has

offered bibliographic utility and became the driving force for drastic computerization in the world ofacademic library. NACSIS was reorganized in 2000, It has became NII: National Institute of Informatic.
Now NII has been working on NACSIS-CAT and NACISI-LL, NACSIS-IR, NACSIS-ELS, NII-REO
and NICE. In addition to that, it is arranging and developing scholarly information base and informatics
like scholarly information and scholarly information system. And also it is building metadata database
and working for SPARC/JAPAN and educational studying activity.

Academic libraries are changing their function from just as an important roll within college anduniversity to all the intellectual activities inside and outside Japan; now the base of informational
communication like scholarly information network and LAN are being sophisticated and arranged
rapidly in colleges and universities. In this situation, academic libraries have a roll to contribute not
only to the needs in a university or educational organization but also to all the people’s intellectualactivities and have started to satisfy the needs. What the most important is, needless to say, the progressof function which each college and university has.
Many policies about the digital libraries have been done mainly by National University Libraries. Still
there’s a delay in many points. Although in Japan many information resources on educational research
are mainly in universities, most of them are dispersed and not standardized. Therefore we have a trouble
in checking whether they exist or not and also where they are.
NII has been constructing "GeNii", the National Institute of Informatics academic content portal, basing
it around the core of content provided by the existing services and adding a search system withenhanced usability, and also including external links1).
GeNii is the NII's academic content portal, providing services related to provision of academic paper
information, book information, etc. In addition to providing these individual services, GeNii connects
the services together.
The GeNii integrated search system was officially launched on April 1 2005, including some of theservices already made available on an experimental basis and incorporating integrated search of thevarious services. Especially Academic Information Resources at Universities is the portal service for theacademic information resources. However the number of their registration is still small. This is due tothe reason that the operations by hands are difficult and also the motivations are low between informers
and users because of unexamined data on the site.
Universities should essentially be the factories of intelligent sources of knowledge. However they

cannot collect, organize and send the sources well by fully using information technology.
To break this situation and use academic information of universities, which have a function to be
useful for international competition and local contribution. Nagoya University Library is planning tobuild the system “Academic Knowledge Factory” cooperating with Information Technology Center andCenter for Information Media Studies.

It is the system of using academic sources that have thefunction of highly digitalized library to use University Portal.

SERIALS CRISIS AND ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Since 1970’s the rise of scholarly journals’ price is the big problem for the academic libraries. The
oligopoly by some commercial publishers have influenced the education and research activities of theuniversities.

Serials purchase budget and titles
4 5 ,0 0 040000

4 0 ,0 0 035000

3 5 ,0 0 030000
雑誌 25000
購
入費 20000

3 0 ,0 0 0百万15000
円

2 0 ,0 0 0

2 5 ,0 0 0（）

1 5 ,0 0 0

10000

1 0 ,0 0 0

5000

5 ,0 0 0045
19050
1955
19

国立大学

60
191965

公立大学

70
1975
1980
19

私立大学

85
1990
1995
1900
20

外国雑誌受入タイトル数

FIGURE 1 Serials Purchase Budgets and Titles in Japan

外国雑誌
受入タイトル
数

In 1989 the number of scholarly journals’ title in all the academic libraries reached 39,000.However thehigh price of scholarly materials continued consistently.(FIGURE1) According to Association of
Research Libraries (ARL), the price of scholarly books got high by 34 percent, and the price ofscholarly journals did by 140 percent during 4 years from 1986 to 2000. Most of academic libraries inJapan had to reduce buying materials. As a result, the number of scholarly journals’ title decreased
rapidly. By the report in 2000, the number in 1997 was under 20,000.

Regardless of National, Public and Private Colleges and universities, there’s a big problem of fiscal
austerity and a jump in material prices. Especially, that is occurred when they buy foreign journals. The
proportion of foreign journals in the budget of academic libraries is high. In some medical type libraries,
the proportion is over 90 percent. Also in university libraries, the proportion is high.
The development of the electronic journals contributed to the efficient research activities for researchers,
but the problem of the rise in prices of scholarly journals is not solved with it. It is a big problem of theUniversity or the library.
Since 1977 Foreign Journals Center has made effort to collect rare scholarly journals, sharing them in 9
national academic libraries. And what’s more, using NACSIS-CAT and NACSIS-ILL, it has built themutual cooperative system like in covering the price of copying a document. In 1989 the number ofscholarly journals’ title in all the academic libraries reached 39,000.
However the high price of scholarly materials continued consistently. According to Association of
Research Libraries (ARL), the price of scholarly books got high by 34 percent, and the price ofscholarly journals did by 140 percent during 4 years from 1986 to 2000.

THE IDEA OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE FACTORYAND ITS FUNCTION

Recently, to solve the problems, various approaches have been done. Above all, open access movementin scholarly publishing is expected much by the researchers and people concerned with scholarlyinformation. “The Institutional Repository“ which is the digital repository of products of academic
institutes, is positioned as the core function of open access movement. Nagoya University Library isplanning the Academic Knowledge Factory to spread digital scholarly informational distribution widelyand make it enhanced and the Institutional Repository.

Academic Knowledge Factory is based on the three ideas, that is, to open the development and effect ofacademic information system in universities, to be standardized as the international one and tocooperate with other academic organizations. This is the information system which has a distributionfunction to collect, organize, process, repository, disseminate and feed back the scholarly informationnecessary today. The main function is listed bellow. (FIGURE2)(1)Harvesting Scholarly Information
Automatically or manually we collect the valuable information resources like dissertation, electronic

course materials and the other digitalized one.
(2) Organization of academic information resources to metadata.
Identification, evaluation, classification, summary and translation of information resources (3)Dissemination of scholarly information
We search and send information with natural interactive ways thorough university portal.

FIGURE 2

Image of Academic Knowledge Factory

FUTURES

It’s important for universities to develop, offer and make good use of the large contents which are madeand owned in the universities. Academic Knowledge Factory is planned to utilize them and enhance theeducational searching function of universities, which can contribute to society and open them to thecommunity and people.

Also this plan has an important function to exchange the standard data formats

with other academic organization.

Developing software that is based on the standard to build

Knowledge Factory will bear fruits in Nagoya University. And the result and knowledge will makeinfluence on the other universities and academic organizations. In the plan, the library will start to open
Kiyo as a trial in the first half of 2005. Then, in the process, it will gather the system and technicalknow-how and at the same time, discuss the way to make it known to everyone in the university. For afull-dress use, it will also upload peer-reviewed published papers to theses, course materials andarchives. Finally, we provide some programmatic direction for the institutional repository researchstreams.
The policy toward the proper management and wide range of opening and sending scholarly
information like the result of the research made at the university is indispensable for many universities
Nowadays, the hybrid library incorporates the values and traditions of open and free access toinformation, without boundaries of time or place. Students, researchers, lifelong learners and citizens
are empowered because access is easy and everything they need is available digitally and seamlessly.
Academic libraries in Japan are experiencing exciting as well as challenging.

REFERNCES
1.http://ge.nii.ac.jp/genii/jsp/index-e.jsp